Miles to Go by Miley Cyrus

at me and said, “Now, honey, I want you to remember this day. Me and your dad, we ain’t carrying no guns, but we love rabbit hunting. Always remember that rabbit hunting is just like the music business.” That made no sense to me. “What do you mean?” I asked. He said, “It’s not about killing the rabbit. It’s about enjoying the chase.” Daddy says that the dogs were howling, and we were standing there—him, me, and Carl Perkins, and he remembers that moment like it was yesterday. I’m not sure I remember it quite that clearly, but I know that day is still with me.
    No single one of those encounters made me who I am. Not one of them convinced me to be an actor or a musician. But our hours and days add up. Little moments attach themselves to other little moments and collect into big dreams. A sunset, a walk, a few small words of wisdom. We become what we experience.

Hannah and Lilly
     
    M aybe my childhood experiences did have a little something to do with getting the part on Hannah Montana , but none of my dad’s friends gave me any nuggets of wisdom about life on the set with my costars. If a TV show is like its own little world, then, in the beginning, the kids on our show were like an entire junior high school class. There was jealousy. There were fights. There was friendship. There was love. The only thing that was different: there were only three of us.
    Emily, Mitchell, and I are all close in age. Three is never a good number. At any given point, someone’s going to feel like a third wheel—that’s just the way threes work. Mitchell and I were sort of insta-best friends. We’re both crazy, silly, fun, high-energy, joking around with no real filters on what we say or do. We even had a little case of puppy love for a while there. It was sweet.
    Meanwhile, Emily’s more reserved. Also, she’s beautiful and athletic. There was competition between us—girls struggle with that, and we were no exception. I didn’t do much to fix it. I mean, I wanted to, but I had no idea how to go about fixing it. I never got along with girls as well as I did with guys. Hadn’t I just endured Operation Make Miley Miserable, which was an all-girl campaign, for a year?
    Emily and I tried to be friends, we really did, but it always ended in a fight. We’re just so different. She’s from L.A.—I’m from the South. She’s opinionated. I’m not opinionated . . . but I’m so not opinionated that I’m opinionated about not being opinionated. She’s supersmart. I felt dumb. Once in our classroom on set we got into a huge yelling argument after the teacher left. It was so bad, and we were so upset, that we each went home and told our parents. Both families all sat down together and tried to work it out. After those peace talks, we tiptoed around each other for a couple of weeks, but it didn’t last. Soon enough we were back at each other’s throats.
    Usually on set everyone’s mellow if someone flubs a line. Not us. We’d be, like, “Gosh,” and roll our eyes in exasperation if the other one messed up. As soon as a take was over, I’d say, “Are we done with this scene now?” or she’d say, “Can we go?” There was no warmth, no chemistry. We were playing BFs, and neither of us wanted to be there. Finally the producers said, “You two have to pull it together.” I think sometimes people forget how old we are. They wonder why we’re behaving the way we do. The pettiness. The drama. The acne depression—I’ll get to that later. We’re teenagers! Our job is to fight. That’s gotta be the downside of making a TV show about teenagers. You have to work with teenagers. On the upside . . . hmm. Maybe there isn’t an upside.
    I really wanted to be best friends with Emily. My dad was playing my dad. Jason Earles, who plays Jackson, was like a big brother to me. The show felt real to me, and I wanted my relationship with Lilly to feel real too. I knew it didn’t have to—show business is show business—but